Good idea to have the same estate agent for both selling and buying?

[marthabear]

I'm hoping to get my house up for sale within the next couple of weeks, after a major declutter and a coat of paint. I have my eye on a local property to buy and have viewed twice. Would it be a good idea to put my house up for sale with the estate agent that is selling the house i am interested in? An easier process or conflict of interests do you think?

Having the same solicitor as the people you're buying from would be a conflict of interest. Is that what you mean?

No I didn't mean solicitors. Inexperienced with this house buying lark, but I thought maybe that having just one estate agent could help things to go smoother/quicker/help chain to hold together as it would cut out the need for communication between two different agents. But didn't know if it would be unwise in anyway?

Yes, they have double incentive to keep the sales going through if they possibly can.

We are going through this right now. We found the house we wanted before we had even put ours on the market - and tied the sale of ours to the purchase. We made it very clear we were only interested in buying that house and we needed to sell ours in time to make that happen.

Seems to be a good idea then.
Jingle & Another - Did your vendors take you seriously even though you didn't have your home up for sale at the time of viewing? Did you make them an offer in this position? And if so, did they accept and take their house off the market while you put yours up for sale and waited for a buyer?

Not formally. But we think the estate agents put more effort into selling ours as a result. We did make it very very clear what we were trying to do.